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Article: Who owns architectural drawings?(Architecture Design & Construction)
- Article from:
- Real Estate Weekly
- Article date:
- May 17, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1995 Hagedorn Publication. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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If you ask any owner or developer who owns the architectural drawings for his project, most would probably say "Well, I paid for them, so I own them." Ask any architect and he would say, "I have not been paid my fee and they are mine." As with many issues, the answer to who owns the drawings depends on the circumstances of their deal and their contract.
As a general matter, architects own their drawings. This is true even if there is no written contract and even if they are not formally copyrighted. However, all this can change if the contract transfers to the owner the copyright to the drawings. All of this also assumes that the architect has been paid his fee ...